79 comments:

Hard hitting journalism, that Couric interview. "Can you name some newspapers and magazines you regularly read?" You half want Palin to reply, "I have five children. I'm the Governor of Alaska. I'm running for Vice President of the United States. And I have the same number of minutes in my day as everyone else. You just wasted one of them with that vapid, irrelevant question. Next?"

In a way it's a weird question. I realize that the Sarah haters won't think so, but really...

What newspapers and magazines do you read?

If she answers something like... "I read the Albuquerque Journal every day..." except it's the Juneau Daily or Alaska Sun (making those up) then it's all... well those are provincial aren't they. Never mind that all the papers draw on the AP or Reuters... same stories, same national columnists.

Newspapers are best for local news anyhow. No one else is going to report on the upset due to parents in Edgewood picking up their children from school on horseback or that the guy working for the water commission uses 10 times the normal residential usage but has managed the rules so he pays less.

The Democrats try this gambit every four years, saying that Republicans are ignorant and inarticulate.

The problem is that most voters truly are ignorant and inarticulate and are usually suspicious of silver-tongued smarties who make big-city promises.

Turn it around, and Republicans should ask Biden if he knows how to grow food in a garden, make his own clothes, comfort a colicy baby, milk a cow. That's pretty loony, but these are weird times, and a lot of people might very well identify with Frontier Mommy Sexy Spectacles Sarah who has been 10,000,000 miles away from Wall Street and FannieMae lobbyists....

OTOH, I wonder if Couric followed-up with "You read all of them? You know, my kids are selling magaazine subscriptions for a school fundraiser... You don't even have to get one for yourself; subscriptions make a great gift."

Is this ever going to stop? Has anyone asked Crazy Uncle Joe what was the last thing he read? Has he ever been asked that for that matter? Was Couric planning on publishing this on People or her high school newspaper?

It's a very good strategy on the part of the MSM. The more people's heads are clogged with doubts about Palin's glibness rating the less they remember that she is a governor who has DONE things, that she has actually governed as opposed to given a speech.

Ugh. I really want to like Palin, but she's making it pretty hard. I'm almost nervous for her in tomorrow's debate. I have this horrible feeling it's going to be a train wreck for her, even with the low expectations.

Then again, Joe Biden will be there, too, so the whole thing promises to be incredibly entertaining. It's a shame I have a night class and will likely miss most of it.

How many newspapers or magazines does anyone read nowadays? Readership is dropping across the country and layoffs are happening at all the major publications. I can't imagine why though with questions like this from MSM.

Go ask the younger, "hip" Obama voter and I bet some of them have never picked up a newspaper or magazine outside of research for a school research paper.

Stupid and useless questions. But I doubt SNL will make fun of Katie for her questioning.

Here's a news story that makes a farce of Couric's question about what Palin's read, specifically. In fact, Palin should ask Sen. Biden this question.

The Examiner via Instapundit:

The 2008 budget year ended yesterday, but Congress hasn't approved a single one of a dozen annual appropriations bills needed to keep the federal government functioning on a day-to-day basis. Hence the $630 billion stop-gap measure, nearly the size of the failed Wall Street bailout. It passed the House on a 370-68 vote even though, as Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., candidly admitted, "very few people have any idea what's in it." Cornered House members had less than 24 hours to review the 357-page bill and 752 pages of accompanying material before being forced to either pass it - or shut down most of the federal government today.

One thing the continuing resolution is full of is earmarks, none of which were debated or voted on in public. The House Budget Committee's final tally is 2,760 earmarks totaling $19.1 billion (including presidential requests). None were publicly vetted through the regular legislative process or even posted on the committee's web site prior to the vote. And, since this temporary spending bill expires in five months, the whole dysfunctional process will begin anew in March – unless there’s a major shakeup of Congress in November.

Daniel said... You need to answer my question first. Is there any question that a "MSM" journalist could possibly ask of Palin that wouldn't send you in a hyper-defensive frenzy?

10:13 AM

Your question is obviously not directed at me, and I shouldn't then answer it. You directed it to a very specific type of person with which I do not identify. So, we can discuss semantics all you want, but the ball is still in your court.

Let's face it: no matter what she is asked, the nuts here and there will whine about "bias" and "gotcha" and try to cover up the fact that Palin is not only a poor interviewee but also peaked when she read a speech off a teleprompter at the RNC.

For the "Joe Six-Pack" reference, the Hugh Hewitt softball interview will enlighten you.

Daniel said... Let's face it: no matter what she is asked, the nuts here and there will whine about "bias" and "gotcha" and try to cover up the fact that Palin is not only a poor interviewee but also peaked when she read a speech off a teleprompter at the RNC.

For the "Joe Six-Pack" reference, the Hugh Hewitt softball interview will enlighten you.

10:21 AM

I did not ask what Hugh Hewitt calls Joe Six-pack. I want to know what you think a Joe Six-pack is, and why it applies to all of those who either support Palin and/or feel that the media are treating her unfairly and with "gotcha" questions.

Too bad she didn't say something along the lines of "I used to read the New York Sun".

Or "Aren't newspapers irrelevant today?".

That aside, while watching the video, it seems clear that Palin was choosing her words carefully and intentionally not answering the question - and it appears that Couric flashes the cameraman a somewhat annoyed look when Palin refuses to fall into her trap.

SP: Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it, but it’s motivation for John McCain and I to work that much harder to make sure that our ticket is victorious, and we put government back on the side of the people of Joe six-pack like me, and we start doing those things that are expected of our government, and we get rid of corruption, and we commit to the reform that is not only desired, but is deserved by Americans.

I'm not a governor, and I have no kids, but I still don't have time to read magazines. I don't watch your show either Katie or any of your colleagues'. I'm a conservative, we don't really like the echo chamber. I can't imagine an answer that would not be ridiculed in some way. That's where this press is today. If Obama/Biden was treated equally we might actually have a decent democratic ticket to consider. I've been a Dem since 1976 and Carter was the last dem I voted for as president. When are we going to get a choice of two good tickets again? Carter was the worst president I've seen. So I do apologize for that vote (I was 18) Man, young people are dumb.

Maybe, like me, she doesn't know how to pronounce Haaretz and didn't want to risk the mockery that would ensue when she got it wrong. And she certainly couldn't neglect mentioning it, could she? Same for the Daily Yomiuri, Kathimerini, etc. Basically she had no winning answer. If she had said The Gulf News but neglected The Yemen Observer, we would be hearing her awful partiality to the UAE, or vise versa.

I'll be 62 in Nov. This past June I went with a bus load of 40 people to a Brewers game. I was the oldest person on the trip, and I was the only one who bought a newpaper in the morning. The only newspaper around here that I buy once in a while is the weekly New Richmond News.

You just prove my point Beth. Journalism is one of those things you get a degree in if you can't cut it in a real major. It's a phony degree like communication'sor marketing or some such thing. She seems to have been smart enough to give up on journalism after a brief stint as a sportscaster. I mean every body makes a mistake now and then. We can forgive her.

Journalism is one of those things you get a degree in if you can't cut it in a real major.

I think you're proving my point.

And I agree about journalism school, not just that it's for dolts, but that it's part of the general decline of journalism over the years. Give me the old school, where snot-nosed kids tagged around after some crusty, sly old bastard or bitch and figured out where the bodies were buried all over town. Now, a bunch of Journalism MAs from out of town staff the local desks and they don't have a clue what politician is allied with what organization, who owns what, nor how to find out anything. And they don't write well, to boot.

The generation thing about reading newspapers or magazines is important. Older people read a paper or even two every day or have subsriptions to magazines. Younger people mostly just don't read a paper....why bother when all that information and more is on line.

Speaking as a rural resident, and maybe this is the same for people in more remote states like Alaska, by the time the paper is delivered by mail it's already old news. We don't have home paper delivery anymore, so your choice is to have it mailed and delivery of mail is about noon. Why bother? I get most of my news on-line and only subsribe to some industry specific papers (IBD WSJ).

EH - For starters, a question that has been asked of the three other male candidates in the U.S. Senate?

NO, they have not been. Because everyone in the media knows that Obama & BIden are such superior intellects they are unworthy of asking such a question of such men And fear that if they ask McCain, he will say he read none as a POW then found the best way to catch up on 5 1/2 years was not read all the backissues but ask people around him what was going on, what had gone on...

Other candidates were asked about what books they have read recently. That is a fair question.

But not what local papers. And what magazines read is clearly a trap..what if she likes some magazines that make her look like a backwoods provincial or "shallow". What if she had said her magazines included Cosmo, People, Commercial Fishery Weekly, Field&Stream?

You know the "shocked! shocked!" response would be that Palin did not read Foreign Policy Review, The Atlantic, Essence, NY Times Sunday Mag& Book Review and just "revealed" how hopelessly provincial she was...

(Self disclosure - I subscribe to a well-regarded local indie paper, The Atlantic, the NRA rag. I scan Drudge, Washington Post, NY Times, BBC, Breitbert online 4-6 times week. When time permits, I also go with scans of Ha'artez, Pakistans "The Dawn", WSJ, Delhi Online, Manchester Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Xinhua (english version) Plus magazines McLeans, Der Spiegel. And various websites on matters like tennis, my engineering field, space. Plus the info stuff my wife and friends get that I see or learn about second hand)

I also suspect that Palin is one of the good ones in the political field - in the sense that her interests are broad, and she possesses a curious mind. I think Obama has one, I know Bush doesn't, and I doubt McCain and Biden have one any longer after all their time in the Senate.

Beth said... "Now, a bunch of Journalism MAs from out of town staff the local desks and they don't have a clue what politician is allied with what organization, who owns what, nor how to find out anything. And they don't write well, to boot."

That's one of the things I find endlessly surprising and disappointing about journalists - how few of them can write worth tuppence. Even at a national level, so much of the writing is like a cheap suit.

Well Beth as a professor, I bet you see a lot of these bullshit degrees. I often think we should go back to a system of apprenticeship like they do for the plumbers and the carpenters. I often go to various companies to do the taxes and the person who knows what they are doing worked their way up in the business but the boss of the department has a fancy degree and an MBA in finance or something like that. You have to go to the older woman who was working there from day one from Bensonhurst or Staten Island or Harlem to find out what is really going on. The ones who have hands on experiance in the real world.

1jpb sez:And, I've heard all the candidates asked about foreign policy and they didn't say they are experienced because the live in a state where some people can see another country.

Which, of course, is not at all what Palin actually said in that ABC interview (plus, indeed, it was Charlie Gibson who first brought up in that interview the fact that Alaska closely borders Russia) — but ABC savaged her words through pre-broadcast malicious editing, leaving many people either thinking that's what she said, or implying (though they might know otherwise) that she did say that in order to further malign her.

I know that I read somewhere that she was asked her favorite writers and why... one might have been C.S.Lewis, but I wouldn't put money on it, it was someone I'd heard of anyway... the other was a magazine columnist who wrote about sports (?)... and she said something specific about why. It was obvious that this really was a particular writer who stood out in her mind.

The other person she listed probably really was one of her favorite authors, too.

They had a fellow on the news last night who has a long career of coaching Democratic candidates for debates. He said they practice policy questions and the sort of "favorite book" questions and "hero" questions that some times get thrown in there. He said the funniest thing (and he wasn't naming names) was once they'd practiced the "hero" one and it actually ended up in the debate but the fellow gave the coach's "Republican" hero answer.

In other words... it was just noise. No one really expects the candidate to give a true answer about favorite books or personal heroes.

So I suppose the question is... if Sarah Palin reads pretty much anything in front of her but doesn't have a particular habit of reading a particular paper or magazine... should she make up something that isn't true that sounds good?

She could have said the name of whatever the main paper in Juneau is... maybe said something about what a great paper it is... and left it to us to assume that meant she read it even when she never said so.

"Fact of the matter is, she probably hasn't had the time to read anything regularly for a very long time, and didn't want to be caught admitting that, or lying."

OR...she could just say that she has had to read laws and legal crap, prospectuses, proposals and financial news articles all day long, hears all the news from television and the internet and at the end of the day isn't interested in reading one more damned thing and plays World of Warcraft instead.